Stardocks TBS fantasy game

I'd imagine all questions will be answered *after* the game is announced. 

1) There are no details available yet as the game hasn't been formally announced.

2) All previous Stardock beta tests required that you pre-order the game to qualify for beta.  I'll bet we'll do the same thing for the fantasy game.

3) Not sure on Dev diaries.

Thanks Zoomba !

a new interview with Brad that mentions the yet to be announced fantasy 4x:

"There are also reports that Stardock is working on a Might and Magic style fantasy strategy game. Can you confirm that and if so what can you tell us about it?

I would say it's more similar to Master of Magic than anything else but it's really its own animal. It's a turn-based fantasy strategy game that lets people build up a civilization in a world filled with magic. That's our next game after Demigod."

http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/06/18/big-download-interview-stardock-ceo-brad-wardell/

Here is a requote from information released earlier on ideas and foundation concepts for the game:

Posted 11 Feb 2008:
Here's Brad's post on the Quarter to Three forums from last year.


I don't want to hijack the thread here with an tangential discussion on what should be in a fantasy strategy game. But here's my 2 cents on that:

1) Character building. The player is a character in the game. Nearly all magic in the world actually flows from the player. If you've ever read The Silmarillion (Tolkien) all the magic in Arda basically comes from the spirit of the things created by Eru. So in this sense, the player is a kind of Valar of sorts who can choose to invest their growing power into their creations/minions or into themselves (or a bit of both). That's an over simplification but the point is, part of the game mechanics is having to choose between making your forces more powerful or actual character.

2) The game is very spell-centric. The 3D engine is being designed so you can do Populous style spells to the world. Since it's turn-based (as opposed to real-time) that also means you can have some ridiculously fancy spell effects.

3) Very distinct magic schools.

4) You cannot build heroes. They have to be recruited and there's no Inn. Ones ability to attract heroes is one of the game mechanics and "interesting choices" players have. Those heroes can be wimpy or powerful depending on how the player chooses to use and invest in them.

5) There is massive scaling in this. At the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings (the movie edition) you could see just how powerful Sauron is. In this, if you manage to get a dragon, that dragon can wipe out hundreds of units. And by scale, we mean there's thousands and thousands of troops. One ancient dragon is taking out hundreds of troops.

6) Cities are built and improved and local geography matters. I won't say more on this right now.

7) Multiplayer will involve all players moving at the same time.

8) Battles zoom in so that tactical combat can occur which is also turn based.

I do want to stress that the goal for this isn't to be a MoM clone. It has its own game mechanics, many of which are in common with MoM since, in a sense, both want to have a lot of Civilization-style elements.

One advantage of being designed in 2007 is the hardware requirements are probably going to be higher than our other games. I want to see large battles. I want to see creatures that can wipe out massive numbers of foot soldiers and such. I want to see magic spells that can flood terrain, raise mountains, ruin worlds. I want to see the land sicken and die when evil takes it over.

If we'd done a MOM2, we would have been faithful to the Master of Magic mechanics. But since we're doing a new game, hopefully we'll be able to make a game that combines favorite elements from many games plus adds our own on innovations to the genre. But it'll be some months before we start putting up any previews or anything (or even announce the game officially).

how is it going. when is the announcement?

no answer? not a single word?

*bump*

Evidently not. I'm very interested in this game also.

dont know how accurate this is but according to this thread (post #8) it will be announced in November with a 2009 release date:

 

http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=29,5290,,60

 

 

 

 

 

I'll  keep my eyes open come November...  myself and many other turn based communities are eager to hear more about this game.

new preview on ING with a partial screen shot:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/920/920420p1.html

sounds like it wont be out until 2010.

 

My very dear Stardock (yes - due to your very good games), if you allow me to seriously beta-test your non-MoM game (and I'm uniquely suited *brag* as I've been playing on computers since 1981, and coding commercially since '84) I am VERY willing to buy that game in advance, paying full price without even looking at it first.

 

If you manage to take the MoM idea, the game with so extremely many way to play, so many different paths to victory, manage to take over the entire fanclub (there are *many* people still playing the original), then you'll not only get very many more fans, but make a heck of a lot of money, too

 

Ciao,

Klaus

Gamespy has a Nov 3rd preview of Stardock's not-Mom.

Thanks for the link Nathan.

Gamespot and IGN also have new previews. Apparently the two factions are going to be "Men" and "the Fallen".

I really hope that the Fallen aren't just an "evil men" faction. Anyway, we'll see.

Yup, the links are:

 

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/news.html?sid=6200601&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/920/920420p1.html

 

The first one's a lot more interesting, though

 

...and it looks GREAT. I just hope there aren't just two sides...